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Asshole asking everybody but himself to do a hard thing, because he feels like it. This tone-deaf entitled management bullshit is so, so exhausting. There's no

Asshole asking everybody but himself to do a hard thing, because he feels like it. This tone-deaf entitled management bullshit is so, so exhausting. There's no way to answer his empty argument - "I just know its right". Well, good for him. The real reason I believe? He's worried his bonus will be impacted, so he makes the easy call - casually screw everybody so he can sleep easier about his $1M christmas check.

The_Colonel 3y ago
Management makes decisions without data all the time. I understand people are personally invested, but sometimes it feels like people can't think about it, and it's all just motivated / wishful thinking. It's a bet in a way, if they're wrong, they will be "punished" by market forces.
- consp 3y ago
  > they == Everybody who does not want to go to the office, the shareholders and others involved but NOT the one making the decision based on nothing.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > if they're wrong, they will be "punished" by market forces we live in age of monopoly, market forces no longer punish. in 1990's there were twice as many companies registered on the stock exchange as today
  - secstate 3y ago
    Disappointed this was downvoted initially, you got my +1. Corporate reality in 2023 is creeping ever closer to a Weyland-Yutani plutocratic government where "market forces" are unable to put a dent in shitty corporate behavior. I have to fly Delta home. They cancelled my connecting flight, moved it to a day later and say "sorry, you can sleep at JFK!" The next time I fly, I've got 1/3 odds Delta will be the only one flying where I need to go. Rinse and repeat for online merchants. This will have ZERO effect on Amazon's ability to function because employees have ZERO clout in management meetings.
    - colpabar 3y ago
      What are you, a communist? The free market will fix that, any day now!
      - antisthenes 3y ago
        Unironically, millions of people still hold that viewpoint pretty strongly. Many Libertarians make a point of stating it in discussion as some kind of flex even. I have no idea why, as it is basically a declaration of one's own economic ignorance, but there you have it.
  - josefritz 3y ago
    People forget how much it's changed but I think that's spot on.
- TheCleric 3y ago
  No I think we’ve seen clearly that management making bad decisions ends up with regular employees getting laid off. There is no punishment for the individuals making bad bets.
hot_gril 3y ago
Some execs feel their employees are less productive when remote. There isn't a non-gameable way to measure productivity. I can tell you with certainty who on my team is getting the most stuff done any given week or across a year, but I can't provide data as to why.
- groos 3y ago
  If you can't actually show it from concrete evidence, then your certainty may actually be an illusion. I have worked with busy-beaver devs who created as many issues as they fixed, in effect making no impact to the quality of the product, and with three-toed sloth types as well, who took a while to get the work done but after it was done, it stayed done.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    I can show you what they got done and walk through my reasoning, but again that isn't data. The busy-beaver's metrics will probably look better despite doing nothing useful.
    - peteradio 3y ago
      I think we should bid hours on tasks. If you want to undercut your teammate because they are a sheister, then you can bid it down and call their bluff. You'd need buy-in to automate the obvious stuff so sheister isn't doing make work. And you'd need buy-in to veto bad projects that shouldn't be done to begin with, aka sheister bait projects.
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        You can't have a team function this way normally, because everything you do relies at least indirectly on your teammates cooperating.
- dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
  For me it's very easy to measure. When working remotely, I do all my tasks, and if I finish before the en of sprint, I sometimes add something from the backlog I planned to do anyway. When working from the office, I do zero tasks, because the moment someone mentions RTO I change jobs.
helij 3y ago
This is exactly what it is in some cases. Bonus. I know about a company where execs bonuses are now based also around how many people they can get back to the office. Of course they are pushing for it.
- politelemon 3y ago
  OK I'm being naive here so educate me - surely the company wants people to produce more, so they need to create those conditions. If they bring people in, some will leave and impact productivity. So management should be careful about pissing off workers - especially with language like this exec has used - they should be doing what works and letting people have flexibility and choices. As I said I'm being naive, so I am missing something from their way of thinking.
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    The deep Twitter cuts were a prime example of number of employees / productivity being orthogonal metrics. Sure, they lost a lot of advertisers and suffered some technical issues because of the transition, but it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had predicted (myself included). The advertiser loss might turn out to be fatal, but I would argue that was more due to a change in the direction of the company (and leveraging it up with much more debt) rather than personnel loss, per se.
  - helij 3y ago
    They are cooking the frog. First 1 to 2 days, then as long as you're in 50% in a month. Now 3 days. Most of the people rant but give up at the end and some go elsewhere. The ones who do what they want and work from home do just that. Execs are happy when they can show 50% compliance overall so they get the bonus.
snird 3y ago
Something is very wrong with Amazon management. They have an employee who has been with them for years, currently kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza[1]. They won't even acknowledge it. It's a crazy thing not to acknowledge, not even in internal forums. 1: https://www-geektime-co-il.translate.goog/amazon-aws-employees-for-sasha-trufanov/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-geektime-co-il.translate.goog/amazon-aws-employe...
bicepjai 3y ago
Reminds me about how India 2016 demonetization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonet... where the argument was this will curtail black money with no data to support over a decision that affect billions of people. There were deaths related to this “I think so” moments

The_Colonel 3y ago

Management makes decisions without data all the time. I understand people are personally invested, but sometimes it feels like people can't think about it, and it's all just motivated / wishful thinking. It's a bet in a way, if they're wrong, they will be "punished" by market forces.

consp 3y ago
> they == Everybody who does not want to go to the office, the shareholders and others involved but NOT the one making the decision based on nothing.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> if they're wrong, they will be "punished" by market forces we live in age of monopoly, market forces no longer punish. in 1990's there were twice as many companies registered on the stock exchange as today
- secstate 3y ago
  Disappointed this was downvoted initially, you got my +1. Corporate reality in 2023 is creeping ever closer to a Weyland-Yutani plutocratic government where "market forces" are unable to put a dent in shitty corporate behavior. I have to fly Delta home. They cancelled my connecting flight, moved it to a day later and say "sorry, you can sleep at JFK!" The next time I fly, I've got 1/3 odds Delta will be the only one flying where I need to go. Rinse and repeat for online merchants. This will have ZERO effect on Amazon's ability to function because employees have ZERO clout in management meetings.
  - colpabar 3y ago
    What are you, a communist? The free market will fix that, any day now!
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      Unironically, millions of people still hold that viewpoint pretty strongly. Many Libertarians make a point of stating it in discussion as some kind of flex even. I have no idea why, as it is basically a declaration of one's own economic ignorance, but there you have it.
- josefritz 3y ago
  People forget how much it's changed but I think that's spot on.
TheCleric 3y ago
No I think we’ve seen clearly that management making bad decisions ends up with regular employees getting laid off. There is no punishment for the individuals making bad bets.

hot_gril 3y ago

Some execs feel their employees are less productive when remote. There isn't a non-gameable way to measure productivity. I can tell you with certainty who on my team is getting the most stuff done any given week or across a year, but I can't provide data as to why.

groos 3y ago
If you can't actually show it from concrete evidence, then your certainty may actually be an illusion. I have worked with busy-beaver devs who created as many issues as they fixed, in effect making no impact to the quality of the product, and with three-toed sloth types as well, who took a while to get the work done but after it was done, it stayed done.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  I can show you what they got done and walk through my reasoning, but again that isn't data. The busy-beaver's metrics will probably look better despite doing nothing useful.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    I think we should bid hours on tasks. If you want to undercut your teammate because they are a sheister, then you can bid it down and call their bluff. You'd need buy-in to automate the obvious stuff so sheister isn't doing make work. And you'd need buy-in to veto bad projects that shouldn't be done to begin with, aka sheister bait projects.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      You can't have a team function this way normally, because everything you do relies at least indirectly on your teammates cooperating.
dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
For me it's very easy to measure. When working remotely, I do all my tasks, and if I finish before the en of sprint, I sometimes add something from the backlog I planned to do anyway. When working from the office, I do zero tasks, because the moment someone mentions RTO I change jobs.

helij 3y ago

This is exactly what it is in some cases. Bonus. I know about a company where execs bonuses are now based also around how many people they can get back to the office. Of course they are pushing for it.

politelemon 3y ago
OK I'm being naive here so educate me - surely the company wants people to produce more, so they need to create those conditions. If they bring people in, some will leave and impact productivity. So management should be careful about pissing off workers - especially with language like this exec has used - they should be doing what works and letting people have flexibility and choices. As I said I'm being naive, so I am missing something from their way of thinking.
- medvezhenok 3y ago
  The deep Twitter cuts were a prime example of number of employees / productivity being orthogonal metrics. Sure, they lost a lot of advertisers and suffered some technical issues because of the transition, but it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone had predicted (myself included). The advertiser loss might turn out to be fatal, but I would argue that was more due to a change in the direction of the company (and leveraging it up with much more debt) rather than personnel loss, per se.
- helij 3y ago
  They are cooking the frog. First 1 to 2 days, then as long as you're in 50% in a month. Now 3 days. Most of the people rant but give up at the end and some go elsewhere. The ones who do what they want and work from home do just that. Execs are happy when they can show 50% compliance overall so they get the bonus.

snird 3y ago

Something is very wrong with Amazon management. They have an employee who has been with them for years, currently kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza[1]. They won't even acknowledge it. It's a crazy thing not to acknowledge, not even in internal forums. 1: https://www-geektime-co-il.translate.goog/amazon-aws-employees-for-sasha-trufanov/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-geektime-co-il.translate.goog/amazon-aws-employe...

bicepjai 3y ago

Reminds me about how India 2016 demonetization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonet... where the argument was this will curtail black money with no data to support over a decision that affect billions of people. There were deaths related to this “I think so” moments